keywords: Young People In Detention

Many of the increased number of boat arrivals are families with children, driven to travel together because of the long delay in processing. To save children from dying at sea we drive more children to risk dying at sea, then inflict more indignities on them when they arrive. It is not a policy to be proud of.

Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Thursday Mass among young offenders who are marginal in any society. His gesture says something about Easter, and about the implications of his desire for a Church of the poor. Those who stand in solidarity with the marginalised will themselves become marginalised.

In Australia the child's welfare is trumped by the demands of a justice system focused on containment of risk, and by populist calls to get tough on crime. When offending children are seen through a judicial lens, and justice is seen as retributive, the support society offers them to become responsible adults is fragmented.

Ranjini turned up for a routine catch-up with her caseworker only to be told she was deemed a security risk and that she and her young sons would be detained indefinitely. Days later she found out she was pregnant. Last night, she gave birth to that child, a son who will be an Australian citizen.

Employed at the centre as a psychologist, I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, attempted suicides and severe depression. I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma: in being compliant to the administration, I was unable to ensure my duty of care towards these people. So I became a mole. Published 27 September 2011

Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address at the 'Ethics in a Multi Faith Society: Muslims and Christians in Dialogue' Conference, Conference under the auspices of the Fethullah Gulen Chair in the Study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, 23 November 2011.

Employed at the centre as a psychologist, I witnessed riots, hunger strikes, attempted suicides and severe depression. I realised I had a profound ethical dilemma: in being compliant to the administration, I was unable to ensure my duty of care towards these people. So I became a mole.

Voters who'd otherwise position themselves between the conservative Liberals and radical Greens are stranded. They are looking for leaders who would rather lose big on matters of principle than win by a margin on compromised policy. History has shown Labor to be the natural home for such leaders.

Atticus works within the system and hopes thereby to reform it. He wonders 'why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro come up'. Many lawyers will understand the challenge of working for the unpopular 'other': just replace 'Negro' with asylum seeker or 'Muslim woman in burqa'.

The back label of my taboo-smashing pre-10am cake was covered in an unintelligible language, which I could only presume was Dutch. What I had thought a tasty sounding Breakfast Cake was apparently also known less appetisingly as an 'Ontbijtkoek'. I can neither read nor speak Dutch despite my Dutch migrant heritage.

The suffering of children opens a door into the hardness of society. Think about the experience of the Stolen Generations, the detention of asylum seeker children, the sexual abuse of children. Societies try to close doors that open on to vulnerability.